We can’t deny how much technology has made our lives so much easier. We no longer need to do most things manually and everything is just simply automated. That in itself is already a blessing. Imagine no longer having to put in the manual labor to get things done. Yet no matter comfortable and convenient our lives have become, there are its drawbacks too. Everything can go haywire in an instant when you encounter a tech-related issue. It is even more difficult if you are clueless about how the technology works itself and you have no go-to guy around that can help you with your digital concerns. You should, by the way, have a go-to guy.

As complicated technology already is, the rising threat of cyber attacks is also a cause of concern among tech users. Malwares are everywhere. You can hear it constantly mentioned on news and it makes tech user’s stomach queasy with the jitters with just the thought of getting hit by such a major headache. Malware often attacks older models of computers and laptops but there have been mobile versions too. These malwares have been so nasty they even managed to cripple many businesses and organizations all over the world and even the UK’s healthcare system a few months ago. Patients missed out on their medications because the medical staff can’t access their data on the computer. Everything just vanished.

In Q2 2017, cyber criminals involved in spam distribution tried to capitalize on public fears when the WannaCry ransomware epidemic struck in May. Knowing that there are lots of people out there infected with this ransomware, and searching for ways to get their encrypted data back, fraudsters sent out spam and phishing emails, offering users different services to fight against the epidemics. This is one of the key findings of Kaspersky Lab’s “Spam and phishing in Q2 2017” report.

The WannaCry ransomware attack affected more than 200,000 computers across the globe, resulting in massive panic, and spammers instantly capitalized on the opportunity. Researchers detected a large amount of messages offering services such as protection from WannaCry attacks, data recovery, and, moreover, educational workshops and courses for users. In addition, spammers successfully implemented a traditional scheme of fraudulent offers to install software updates on affected computers. However, links were redirecting users to phishing pages, where the personal data of victims would have been stolen.

It’s funny that this entire WannaCry issue wasn’t really just all about crippling nations and gaining money from the bitcoin ransom but also as a means to advertise their data recovery magic to the unfortunate computer users who have fallen victims to this scam for even more cyber hacking. Even corporate offices received such offers but there is a catch, not only are these dubious people offering such services but in the process also steals personal data of the victims by redirecting victims to phishing pages. It’s a double whammy for these unfortunate individuals to be scammed twice.

But you will likely also have a great deal of data that is not in a cloud-only system — data that lives on your internal networks, from instruction manuals to copies of your logo.

To protect this data from ransomware, you need to do two things:

Keep your backups somewhere that is not part of your online network file system.

Keep earlier versions that you can restore in bulk if ransomware encrypts the originals.

You may have your data synched to an online storage system likeGoogle Driveor Microsoft OneDrive. But few if any of these cloud storage systems allow you to automatically restore all of your files to a specified point in time. If the online storage service does keep earlier versions, you may have to restore them manually, file by file. Your files probably number in the tens of thousands, so this is a weak solution; Combo’s David Markus is one who warns against using ordinary cloud storage systems for backup.

Instead, most businesses will need to implement one of two reliable ransomware-proof systems.

Data security is the biggest threat on the web today when cyber criminals have also leveled up their A-game and the possibility of quantum computing that will eventually override encryption that is essentially our safety net against hackers when using the Internet is looming on the horizon.

Then, there is the issue of data recovery for those whose gadgets have succumbed to the malware introduced especially that most backups installed on hard drives failed to protect the gadgets from these malwares. They’re just too much to handle for these victims, so better upgrade the OS you are using to protect yourself from these modern dilemmas as newer operating systems are equipped to fight off these ransomware attacks much better than older models.